We all know that most vegetables are incredibly nutrient dense and help to keep our bodies running at maximum efficiency, and yet many of us still have a difficult time incorporating these wonderful foods into our diets. If you already love to eat vegetables but are looking for easy new ways to add more of them to your diet, or if you’re a vegetable-hater looking to improve your relationship with these foods that are so essential to your health, this article will show you how to do just that! Are you having gastrointestinal issues and are looking for more fiber in your diet? Instead of asking how do you get rid of hemorrhoids? Ask yourself how do you prevent them in the first place. This article is DEFINITELY for you!

Before we get into the list of tips on how to easily add more vegetables to your daily meals, it’s important to let go of any pre-existing biases we may have against vegetables. For starters, acknowledge that vegetables can be super delicious when prepared in different ways; you just haven’t found the ways that work best for you. Even if you already do eat vegetables, but not nearly as much as you would like to, read on with a positive mindset and open mind, let your taste buds explore new horizons, and don’t be afraid to step out of your culinary comfort zone!

Without any further ado, here are 5 easy ways to eat more vegetables:

Play Vegetable Hide And Seek

Most vegetables are surprisingly easy to hide in other foods. This is a great technique to use if you don’t particularly enjoy the taste or aesthetics of a particular vegetable, and is a great way to get children to eat more veggies! There are tonnes of different ways to do this, for example, cutting them up into tiny pieces and adding them to omelettes, wrapping them up in bacon, mashing them up with other foods (like mashed potato), making sauces, dips and pastes out of them (for example pesto and guacamole), and making them look interesting and like something they’re not (for example zucchini noodles), among many other strategies.

Add Vegetables To Your Favorite Meals

Many of the meals we know and love can actually become all the more delicious with the addition of different vegetables; in some cases the addition may only be noticed visually because the taste may be completely masked by the other flavors in the dish. A good example of this is adding broccoli (or any other vegetable) to pizzas, different pasta dishes, lasagna, etc.

Smoothies and Soups

Smoothies and soups are particularly efficient ways of masking different vegetable tastes that we would especially prefer to avoid. With the right combination of ingredients, a smoothie is a great way to eat more vegetables and will help you get over your fear of vegetables such as kale and spinach. Adding a few carrots to your soup will hardly make a strong impact on the soup’s flavor, and can add a bit of color (as well as nutrients) to an otherwise often plain dish!

Dips

This tip can be looked at from two different perspectives. First, dips made out of vegetables can be amazingly delicious and healthy (for example guacamole, tzatziki, and hummus). Second, using your favorite dips for vegetable sticks (for example carrot and cucumber sticks) is a great way to eat more vegetables and actually enjoy the process!

Hone In On Your Inner Master Chef

A big part of how enjoyable vegetable dishes can be depends on how they are cooked and prepared. Cooking techniques are often taken for granted when vegetables are concerned, and this often results in less than perfect dishes that perpetuate the idea of vegetables being unappealing foods. Read up on different vegetable cooking techniques to make your vegetables as delicious as they can be. Grilling vegetables such as zucchinis, eggplants and asparagus for example, results in tasty, appealing vegetables. Another example of this is if you’re dealing with a vegetable with a particularly strong taste such as brussels sprouts and cauliflower, their strong taste can be tamed with different techniques such as adding something salty to the mix, or using different oils when stir-frying them.

Use this list of easy ways to eat more vegetables and develop healthier (and more delicious) eating patterns, and you’ll see the positive results on your general well-being in no time!

I’m nuts for over nuts!! I love eating a serving of nuts per day and I wanted to share my love of nuts and their health benefits. These benefits include potential help in lowering cholesterol, better heart health, more control over weight, and possibly lowered cancer risk! No wonder I’m nuts over nuts!!

Too few American eat nuts on a regular basis. Here’s what you should be eating:

1. Walnuts:

Walnuts contact THE most antioxidants of any nut around. They help fight inflammation, protect your body from cell damage that leads to cancer and cardiovascular disease. They are rich in omega-3 fatty acids in particular.

2. Almonds

Almonds contain the most FIBER and vitamin E compared to any other nut. Vitamin E is a potent antioxidant. Almonds may also help with weight loss and help you gut- a study found that nuts elevated good bacteria that helped boost the immune system.

Serving information: About 23 nuts = 170 calories, 15 grams of fat

3. Cashews:

Cashews are very rich in iron and zinc. What does iron do? It helps transport oxygen to your cells and that can prevent anemia. And zinc? Zinc is vital to the immune system as well as vision. Another is magnesium, which may help improve cognitive functioning and prevent memory loss related to aging.

Serving information: about 18 nuts = 165 calories, 13 grams of fat

4. Pecans:

Pecans are more than those tasty morsels we put in delicious pies. They also help improve cardiovascular health due to being very rich in antioxidants. What does this mean? They help prevent plaque from forming in your arteries and may help lower LDL (bad bad cholesterol). There’s also some that suggest pecans may protect the brain from degeneration associated with ALS, for example.

Serving information: About 18 halves = 200 calories, 21 grams of fat

5. Brazil Nuts: Potent Cancer Protector

I used to love Brazil nuts as a kid. Cracking them open was quite the challenge. My grandma always had them around the house. Do you know that one Brazil nut has over 100% of our daily value for selenium, which is a mineral that may help prevent some types of cancers, including breast cancer. How? They may inhibit the growth of cancer cells.

Food, the most integral part of our lives, is also the same part that is most often neglected by us. For us, the idea of good food always involves food from either cans or take-out boxes. So wound up in our busy lives that we have forgotten what it is like to eat a gourmet style home-cooked dinner made from scratch. However, if done the right way, a good home-cooked meal can be managed even on our busiest of days with only a little effort and willingness.

We always have misinterpreted the meaning of the word ‘gourmet’ to be restaurant-quality, well-presented food made by experienced chefs. But, what is a delicious, properly cooked, nutritious and hygienic meal if not gourmet? Thus, even when you are in a rush, concocting a simple recipe for a fulfilling meal is possible, given that you are up for it.

Here are a few tips to help you when you are in a hurry and broaden your ideas:

How often have you found yourself wanting to pack a proper meal for work but were unable due to having very little time? How would you like to have homemade Lamb chops as lunch? Perplexed already? I am sure a lot of questions are running through your mind right now, but yes, lamb chops can be made very quickly if you know what you are doing. All you need is a pack of lamb chops, variety of herbs including oregano, rosemary, thyme and lavender leaves, minced garlic and mustard. Season the lamb chops with the ingredients and cook for 4 minutes on each side. The whole process hardly takes 15 minutes and you have a gourmet meal to enjoy at work.

You can also easily make a delicious breakfast on the go. There’s a variety of options. First, you have the super easy route. You can grab a supplement shake like CrazyBulk to pack on the protein. You can make oatmeal and let it set the night before for a delicious morning meal. For example, take the following ingredients/supplies and sit the oats overnight in the fridge:

old fashioned rolled oats (not instant, quick, or steel-cut)

Greek yogurt

milk (I used skim, but any kind will work)

chia seeds

half pint (1 cup) mason jars, find them at Walmart or on Amazon

Let’s look at another scenario- The unexpected guests… Let’s say you have few unexpected guests over at your place. Nothing is cooked at home and taking them out to a nice steakhouse restaurant is out of the question..money is tight. What do you do? What if I told you that with just a little effort, you can have a cheaper and healthier steak at home? Sounds impossible, right? Well, not quite. All you need are nicely cut pieces of beef, use fresh thyme and rosemary to give it flavor and add salt and pepper. 8 minutes of cooking on each side will be adequate to prepare a mouthwatering and unforgettable meal for your guests. While the meat is cooking, you can also make mushroom gravy or mashed potatoes and serve them on the side to give your guests a complete experience of a gourmet meal.

These are a few methods which, along with many others,will make you less reliable on restaurants when you are in search for gourmet meals in quick time. Restaurants are best visited on special occasions, a couple of times in a month when you want to treat yourself to a grand meal, but it is not correct to assume that restaurants are your only source of gourmet food. Life is busy for everyone, but with the right kind of attitude and dedication, you can Eat Healthy On The Go.

So today my stomach hurt big time. I decided to do a search and figure out the best foods to eat while experiencing such ailments. Shape magazine provided a good resource.

Bananas- bananas are easy to digest and generally good to eat if you have an upset stomach. It contains pectin, which helps with bowel movements.

Papaya- This tropical fruit is known to aid in digestion and ease constipation. The enzymes which help are called papain and chymopapain. Both enzymes help break down protein and keep a healthy acidic environment in the stomach. If you have trouble finding papaya in the store, you can look for papaya extract at your favorite vitamin store.